From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed May 13 10:31:15 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA04231 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Wed, 13 May 1998 10:31:15 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from att.com (kcgw1.att.com [192.128.133.151]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id KAA04225 for ; Wed, 13 May 1998 10:31:08 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from sbabkin@dcn.att.com) From: sbabkin@dcn.att.com Received: by kcgw1.att.com; Wed May 13 12:31 CDT 1998 Received: from dcn71.dcn.att.com ([135.44.192.112]) by kcig1.att.att.com (AT&T/GW-1.0) with ESMTP id MAA22675 for ; Wed, 13 May 1998 12:31:08 -0500 (CDT) Received: by dcn71.dcn.att.com with Internet Mail Service (5.0.1458.49) id ; Wed, 13 May 1998 13:30:55 -0400 Message-ID: To: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, al@cn.ua Subject: RE: Q. Work on boot code for Intel Flash 2 PCMCIA card? Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 13:30:52 -0400 X-Priority: 3 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1458.49) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > ---------- > From: Alexey Lukin[SMTP:al@cn.ua] > > I'm going to make FreeBSD booting from PCMCIA Flash card. Goal is > FreeBSD-based diskless router with > serial console and a lot of various network interfaces. > > Another solution for this task is to produce special ISA board with > boot > ROM and flash matrix, > but I'll do it as "last resort" 'cos of difficulties with co-operation > in development. > > I guess it's much easier to get PCMCIA interface+ flash card and make > router more powerfull that CISCO or BAY :-) > I think the best solution would be to make an ISA card (yes, ISA, not PCI because there are many other good things to insert into PCI slots while ISA slots are commonly unused) that makes interface to a flash card through a 8K (or some other small) window, exposing the first 8K of flash memory at boot up. It must be mapped into ISA hole. This will allow to put the bootstrap code into this area of the flash memory, that will be automatically called by any BIOS during boot-up. This bootstrap can then do anything from immediate boot to simulating a floppy drive. May be a good idea would be to have two independently mapped 8K or 4K sized windows for convenience of the bootstrap code. -Serge To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message